The Brights Philippines

[sley43]

THE BRIGHTS - illuminating and elevating the naturalistic worldview

To translate this Bulletin: http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

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ANOTHER NATION "BRIGHTENS"

Sergej is the first Bright to register from Belarus, thereby adding a new
nation to the Brights' international listing, which now has registrants in 185
different UN-identified countries.

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A NEW ENTHUSIASTIC BRIGHT

Now we have two "Enthusiastic Brights" named Dan. Dan #1 (Professor Dennett) is
known for philosophizing in multiple arenas, while our new Dan is knee deep and
sky high in astronomy and astrophysics.

Dr. Dan Hooper is Associate Scientist in the Theoretical Astrophysics Group at
Fermilab and Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the
University of Chicago. A bit more on Dan #2 is at:
http://the-brights.net/people/enthusiastic/index5.html

Acknowledged activists like these two Dans help promote the Brights movement
and do what Brights (as Dr. Dennett proposes) should do: make the naturalistic
worldview seem attractive, as it is, and help to give other people "...a frame
for how they think about everything, not just religion, but about ESP and
superstitions of all sorts, astrology; a way of disciplining [their] thought."

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MORALITY PROJECT REVIEW PANELISTS

We are grateful to the researchers and ethicists who scrutinized the Morality
Project's four assertions, examined nominated studies, and either provided full
authentication or supplied remarks both prompting and enabling some further
clarification to simplify wording of our "scientifically defensible
statements":
* Oliver Curry (Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, Oxford)
* Herbert Gintis (Santa Fe Institute)
* Joshua Greene (Department of Psychology, Harvard University)
* Marc Hauser (Cognitive Evolution Laboratory, Harvard University)
* Jessica Pierce (University of Colorado Health Sciences Center)
* Peter Singer (Princeton University)

At Brights Central (BC), we are currently compiling feedback received from
these reviewers and will be sending it along this week to project leader Ruban.
The coming month should permit our posting the assertions on the website, along
with a full listing of supporting studies and the "most helpful readings"
identified by the panelists. That action will bring Project Area B to a
conclusion. For a brief glimpse of all project areas, see:
http://the-brights.net/action/activitie ... oject.html

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IN OVER THE TRANSOM

When a Bright with an artistic flair starts playing around with the Brights
icon, one never knows what one will see. A fish? An octopus? A bird? A star
fish? A palm tree? How about ALL of these? To see the tropical scene Marcos
envisioned, populated by diverse iconic forms, go to:
http://the-brights.net/people/expressions.html

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WOW-A FACEBOOK BOOST?

A nice bump in signups put August registrations higher than those in any
similar period of the previous 10 months. Of the 656 individuals registering on
the main site, some were already identifying as Brights on Facebook (a
suggestion by Peter, our summer intern, was that they be invited register on
the main site, if they hadn't done so already).

It shouldn't be too long before the constituency breaks through the 50,000
count. We'd like that to happen during 2009, so be sure to do your part by
telling others to check out the Brights' website. (The easy route to recommend
is: "Just Google Brights").

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WEAVING THE FABRIC

One aspect of BC's commitment to the overall Brights' endeavor involves
connecting the broader community of people who have a naturalistic worldview
with one another. We often do this by sending out selective "BrightenOps"
(opportunities of possible interest).

EXAMPLE: Just recently, the Madison (WI) Brights informed BC of the group's
collaboration with local humanists and skeptics to host a presentation by the
new director of the Secular Coalition for America. In hopes that more people
might attend that event to learn about the SCA's activities, BC sent a
"BrightenOp" to 885 Wisconsin Brights to inform them about the gathering.

As BC staff has limited time available, a local event must be seen to align
well with aims and principles of the overall movement before we will alert
Brights in the surrounding region. Priority for the Ops goes to positive
activities, especially those that involve collaboration across varied groups.
(Brights' Principle 8 is key to that "positive" criterion.)
http://the-brights.net/vision/principles.html

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FROM THE REGISTRATION INBOX

Ken (Hawaii, USA): "This is the umbrella I've been looking for."

Laurie (California, USA): "I have long felt that I am a tiny speck in a sea of
people whose lives are run by belief in supernatural, mystical, magical
thinking. I think it might be interesting to find other like-minded
individuals, maybe considering that we may influence our societies in a good
way."

Julie (Great Britain): "July, came across you, I felt lost..."

Erica (Texas, USA): "I've been an atheist my entire life and I've had to fight
my own family for the right to do so. Now I am raising my own children and I'd
like the information to pass onto them while they are growing in our "bright"
family so they can make their own educated decisions about their beliefs. We
are so grateful organizations like this exist."

Donald (Florida, USA): "I am glad to find a group of like-minded people, and
especially pleased that many are distinguished, educated, and creative. I
thought I was all alone out here. Thank you."

A.J. (Bangladesh): "I love the fact that such a thing like this even exists!"

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DUBLIN BRIGHTS CLUSTER FORMING

A Dublin Brights MeetUp group is being started by James with hopes to connect
people in Dublin "to share opinions and views and also to take appropriate
action to make more people aware of the goals and ideals of the Bright movement
and of The Dublin Brights Meetup Group."

For those interested, go to:
http://www.meetup.com/The-Dublin-Brights/

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STILL ANOTHER CLUSTER FORMING

The Morgantown Brights is a West Virginia University-based "community service
group that meets every other week for great discussions and volunteer
activities."

The Morgantown Brights facebook group is at
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/grou ... 009&ref=ts

Those interested in participating can also e-mail to:
brightermotown@yahoo.com

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BC IS TWEETING BRIGHT ACTIONS

The Brights' Net has just completed its first month on Twitter. So, now your
friends can go there to glimpse actions by Brights. During August, the Brights
named below were acknowledged on Twitter for an activity.

ADVANCING THE MOVEMENT:
Manuel (Germany), Derek (Scotland), Pierra (Quebec), and in the USA: Vera,
Massachusetts / Marcos, District of Columbia / Daniel, Michigan / Gail,
Colorado / Patricio, Maryland / Davis, Idaho / Kevin, Nebraska / Julia,
California

MAKING THE WORLD A BIT BETTER
Thanks to Richard (Wisconsin), Jim (New Mexico), Don (Arizona), Grace
(Illinois), and George and Debbie (Virginia) for their emailed reports.

We tweet in spurts (as time permits and as information flows in.) Help us to
show constructive activities by Brights. Being on Twitter is an experiment, and
it depends on participation. You and your friends can access The Brights Net on
Twitter at:
www.twitter.com/TheBrightsNet

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TELL US WHAT YOU ARE DOING

"What are you doing?" That's the question one answers with a tweet on Twitter.

At Brights Central, we'd like to hear what YOU are doing (in your own way) to
[1] advance the Brights movement or [2] "do good" as a Bright in the world at
large. Please inform BC of a gratifying activity in either of these realms.

Of course, we don't mean reporting what you are doing at the exact moment. We
welcome information about what you do regularly or did anytime rather recently.
We can recast your information into just 140 characters and post a tweet for
others to read. Who will read it?--ALL who are following The Brights' Net on
Twitter. And they can tell their friends about it, too. Examples help to get
across the idea of Brights engaging in principled actions.

Email your activity to the-brights@the-brights.net so that a volunteer can
compile and translate the information. If you expect us to tweet, then you must
also provide your LOCATION and put TWITTER in your subject line. Alternatively,
if you have a Twitter account, you can write it yourself and include the
hashtag #AsABright. We do ask that you include your location to illustrate the
geographic diversity of constituents.

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JEWISH BRIGHTS (SIG4JB)

There are Jewish Brights who wish to further the aims of the Brights movement
within secular and humanistic Judaism. If that fits you, then you are invited
to register in Brights' Action Group SIG4JB. Through this type of group, BC
hopes members can further pursue the ideals of building bridges between brights
and supers, with supers gaining better understanding of the naturalistic
worldview and those who hold it.

Besides creating a bit of camaraderie, SIG leader Marvin Rosenblum hopes
members will organize themselves into a cohesive group to heighten personal
Jewish awareness and imbue the concepts of secular and humanistic Judaism to
others whose heritage is Jewish, and who may or may not be affiliated with a
synagogue and/or a traditional denomination.

Prospective members may be unaware that there are so many like-thinking
individuals. SIG4JB's pluralistic ideals can be assertively endorsed and
contribute to Judaism's amalgamation into the world's countless advocates for
individual self determination free of the concept of divine interference. Join
the subgroup at:
http://www.the-brights.net/action/subsc ... ur-jb.html

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ON THE BRIGHT SIDE AT CAMBRIDGE

An article on the Brights appeared in the official student newspaper of
Cambridge University, UK (The Cambridge Student, Issue 7, 2009).

Thom, its author, reports: "I wrote it to launch Christ's College Brights - a
Brights group for members of Christ's College, Cambridge. We now have about 30
active members." (The student newspaper has a distribution near 10,000.)

======================
WORD STUFF, CONTINUED

Mike (USA): "Some opinions I have read consider Bright to be an arrogant term,
but I disagree. I think it is uplifting and has the positive connotation that
atheist obviously does not. I commend your work, thank you."

Jaime (Mexico): "I never liked the word atheism since many superstitious people
claim to be atheists."

Joel (Canada): "A fantastic idea to be rid of the negative ideas associated
with the terms usually given to such beliefs."

Gregg (New York, USA): [Heard] "years ago, just late in deciding I could live
with the term. The thought of being a Bright Green Atheist was just too good to
pass up."

BC to Gregg: And how does a "Green Atheist Bright" sound to you? If you can
handle the rearrangement, we'd urge its use, at least for a while (until
Brights themselves get better at fully assimilating the naturalistic worldview
meaning). You and others can help speed that along by consistently placing the
neologism in an "obviously a noun" position. For more on this topic, please
see:
http://the-brights.net/movement/how_to.html

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FORUM'S EVO-ED FLYER MOVES ANOTHER STEP

Thanks go to the SIG 2 (Categorically Sound Science) Brights for offering
suggestions of suitable (captivating, readily available, understandable)
resources for the Forum's draft flyer on evolution. [Discussants had been
considering potential resources to guide neophytes toward understanding of key
concepts of evolutionary theory.] Thanks, too, to the USA-based National Center
for Science Education, whose deputy-director offered his suggestions.

Once the evo-ed flyer is finalized with its limited book list, BC will make
that version available online for downloading. The concept of compiling a
broader array of good resources (including other media than books) in a
companion bibliography (for teachers, or for those who have deeper interest) is
also under consideration.

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NEWS: WINNING A BIG ONE (USA)

Congratulations go to the American Atheist organization, which was among the
plaintiffs to file suit challenging a governmental action (calling on God to
protect Kentuckians). This month a Kentucky Circuit Court ruled that the
state's Office of Homeland Security violated the separation of church and state
when it erected a plaque calling upon "Almighty God" to protect citizens from
"acts of war or terrorism."

Since Brights would likely have interest in the topic, BC had sent an email
BrightenOp blast to all Kentucky Brights (1,416) notifying them of the suit.
Also, we should note that Edwin Kagin, National Legal Director for American
Atheists and the attorney who argued the case for the plaintiffs, has been an
Enthusiastic Bright since very early in the Brights movement.

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NEW YORK BOUND

We will certainly miss Peter, the NYU journalism student who helped out at
Brights Central for two months this summer. The-Brights.Net office is located
only about 3 km from the state capitol building in Sacramento California, USA,
and Peter was able to combine his activities at BC with a formal internship in
a key state government office close by. He has now headed back to college.

While working for the Brights, Peter stimulated some youthful interest in
forming campus groups and also suggested several new activities that BC has
implemented. Additionally, he has prepared in draft form some materials for BC
that will likely make their way onto the website in the near future.

BC's first intern experience has been so satisfying (according to Peter - it's
mutual) that if any college student in Sacramento would like to apply for a
similar opportunity, then email to the-brights@the-brights.net (Put INTERN in
the subject line and briefly introduce yourself.)

======================
BRIGHTS IN PRISON

The project continues to grow, with three new subscribers this month to Joel's
"A Little Brightness" newsletter.

From Daniel (incarcerated in California): "Nothing would make me happier than
to be registered as a Bright. The naturalistic worldview describes me
perfectly."

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BOOKS BY BRIGHTS

Two additions to the library listing come from new Enthusiastic Bright Dan
Hooper. A description of each item is at the URL provided below the title.

NATURE'S BLUEPRINT: Supersymmetry and the Search for a Unified Theory of Matter
and Force
http://the-brights.net/people/books/boo ... ml?book=nb

DARK COSMOS: In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass and Energy
http://the-brights.net/people/books/boo ... ml?book=dc

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TURNING UP THE BRIGHTNESS IN TEXAS (USA)

A heads-up message was sent to all Texas Brights (1,400) noting that the
American Humanist Association was petitioning the Texas State Board of
Education on an important curricular issue.

In the BrightenOp message, BC stated: "We think that notifying Brights about
the existence of this AHA-proposed action is a better route than initiating an
entirely separate action. Curricular decisions in Texas carry influence with
publishers, and the AHA is opposing any 'revisionist history' in which the
social studies curriculum overstates the role of religion in American history
and misconstrues the relationship between religion and government."

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HOW I HEARD ABOUT THE BRIGHTS - AROUND THE WORLD

In recent months the Bulletin has included one person's interesting story and
invited other submissions. (Email any that might be unusual to
the-brights@the-brights.net with HOW I HEARD in your subject line.) Of those
submissions this month, this one drew notice:

From Foivos (Canada): "I heard about the Brights from my hairstylist. Who would
have known?"

You see? Tell others, it works!

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POETICALS

From Art, a Bright in Georgia, USA: So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths
that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind, is all this sad world
needs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1919-1950)

By Margaret, a Bright in the UK: "In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But Westward look - the land is Bright."

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DO YOU KNOW HOW TO CONTACT?

Rachel stated in her registration: "I first heard of The Brights through a
band's website, www.thecure.com"

Others have also mentioned having initially found the Brights through the link
on this band's website. BC ran into a dead end in its effort to contact someone
in this group. If you are a band member (or if you know a direct email to the
group), please email the-brights@the-brights.net with CURE in your subject
line.

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A TURKISH BRIGHTS' BLOG SPOT

From Turkey: "Glad to inform you that we have published a blog in Turkish
language. The blog contains translation of all official info in
The-Brights.net.
Also a link to the Turkish Brights FaceBook group."
http://brightsturkiye.blogspot.com/

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POLISH BRIGHTS

Some Polish Brights are active in trying to change the current policies
regarding teaching religion in the public schools.

======================
AMAZON PURCHASES AID MOVEMENT

In the last month Brights purchased $2,969 from Amazon.com, providing $201 to
The Brights Net. What an easy way to support the Brights!!!

Categories tapped this month: Video Games, Sports and Outdoors, Music,
Magazine, Subscriptions, Kitchen and Housewares, Health and Personal, Grocery,
Electronics, DVD, Cell Phones and the most used category of all--Books!

Amazon.com direct link for easy access (USA):
http://www.amazon.com/?tag=thebrinet-21

Both Amazon.com and UK Amazon can be reached via the search-boxes at:
http://www.the-brights.net/people/books/index.html

In August, the UK's access route yielded GBP 19.5 (all proceeds go to the UK
Brights).

When you route yourself through the appropriate URL, you will "arrive" on
Amazon's site, but you will NOT see any references to The Brights' Net.
Nevertheless, the Brights WILL receive from 4 to 8% on any purchase(s) you make
at the time, with no additional cost to you!
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REFERENCE GUIDE TO CONTACTING PERSONNEL AND LOCATING INFORMATION

All contact and general information at:
http://www.the-brights.net/reference_guide.html

All the Bulletins, including this one, may be found via the link in the right
column of the home page at
http://www.the-brights.net

To financially support the civic aims and principles of the Brights movement:
http://the-brights.net/action/support/


Bright Regards from Mynga Futrell and Paul Geisert at Brights Central
Contact us at the-brights@the-brights.net